The carols, which are not the familiar modern carols that are sung with regularity today, are the most easily approachable pieces on the album. The chants have an impressive austerity, the carols are rustically buoyant, while the motets are sung with absolute purity and precision. What's most notable about it is the impressive range of appropriate performance practices the group brings to this varied repertoire, which starts with chant and moves through folk-like carols to Renaissance motets. This album, Christus Natus Est: An Early English Christmas, includes works from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. The Sixteen, a mixed vocal ensemble founded and conducted by Harry Christophers, has a repertoire ranging from plainsong to contemporary works. Verbum caro factum est, responsory motet for 6 voices.But in modern times, regretfully, the social pressures around the season, made ever more intense by the strictures of the consumer society, can lead to a sense of forced and inauthentic celebration.
Lullaby, my sweet little baby, madrigal for 5 voices (SSATB) & viols.Lute Book Lullaby ("Sweet was the song the Virgin sung").Quid Petis, O Fili?, carol for 4 voices.Remember, O thou man (from Melismata, 1611).There Is No Rose of Such Virtue (English).Gaudete Christus est natus (Piae Cantiones 1582).Nowell, Nowell, Tidings True, carol ("Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, this is the salutation").